I love Doritos. In fact, if it were possible to determine where all the fat on my body came from, Doritos would have a significant amount of responsibility.

I think the idea of a chip that isn’t as crunchy or messy is a good idea, provided that it tastes as good. I assume it doesn’t. Chips always have different versions, the fat free version, the this version, the that version, none of it is as tasty as the regular. They might be more healthy, but not as tasty.

But I mean, if it were possible to make a less crunchy, less messy chip, that sounds like a good idea. A chip you could bring to a quiet place and eat and not bother anyone. A chip that you could eat and it wouldn’t make your hands all messy with cheese and then your fingers are all orange for the rest of the day and you inevitably leave cheesy fingerprints all over everything around you.

I don’t think society is necessarily clamoring for that type of chip, but you know, if a chip scientist came up with this, that would be the way to market it. Cue commercial of an annoying coworker eating his loud, messy chips, driving everyone nuts. Maybe the boss picks up an important document with cheese dust all over it, then that’s the last straw, he smacks the chips out of the worker’s hand and gives the worker a bag of office friendly Doritos.

Hell, that’s what you could call them. “Office friendly Doritos.” Put them in all workplace vending machines.

Soooo…instead, Doritos calls these, “Lady Doritos.” Women, y’all are too messy and gross and loud and if you want a man you’re going to have to get Lady Doritos.

COMMERCIAL: Man sees a woman. He is in love. She eats a load chip. Man says, “Ugh!” and runs away. Announcer says, “Coulda been married by now if you’d had Lady Doritos.”

Folks, you know me. I’m very un-PC. I believe it’s generally good to be nice and thoughtful of feelings but we can’t just walk around on eggshells, scared the littlest thing might offend so we just say nothing.

But even an un-woke person like me, who laughs at people who require safe spaces, trigger warnings and therapy coloring books and puppies has to admit, Lady Doritos was a bad idea.

First, it wasn’t like there was a groundswell of people who were pissed at loud and/or messy chips. Yeah, there might be some situations where they’re annoying but it’s not like the crunch is akin to a deafening fog horn and the cheese residue is nothing that a trip to a sink can’t cure.

Even so, the idea is interesting and worth a go. I just don’t understand how the marketing people flubbed this.

Had they called this, “The Clean, Crunchless Chip” people would probably give it a try. People who bring their lunch to work might be inclined to buy that variety of Doritos over a rival brand of chip.

But they called it “Lady Doritos.” Holy shit. I’m very un-woke but had I been in that marketing meeting I’d of been like, “Dudes! Y’all are going to be crucified on Twitter.”

“The Crunchless Chip” inventor would get a Nobel Prize and there’d be science journal articles about his invention and shit.

But they screwed it up. “Lady Doritos.” Shit. What a bunch of dummies.

If you’re on the Tweet-a-mo-bob, (follow me @bookshelfbattle) you might have noticed that they changed things around a lot.

Yet, they still didn’t bring one desperately needed feature – the ability to edit a Tweet.

As it stands right now, if you write a tweet with a mistake in it, your only option is to delete it and rewrite the whole thing. You really should be able to just hit an edit button, change the erroneous word, and then save it.

Your old Uncle Hardass here. Still working on your writing careers I see. Good for you. Never let reality get in the way of a good daydream. I’m sure your parents don’t mind subsidizing your hubris until the end of time.

You know what just frosted my ass? This photo:

In case you’re not hip like your old Uncle Hardass, that’s Amber Rose who is famous for…uh…well she does…I think she’s on TV or some shit. She’s a professional hot chick like Kim Kardashian or something.

Also, she does this thing called a Slut Walk which, hey, I’m not complaining. Hell, twenty years ago I’d of invited all those sluts to take a walk past my front door but today? Meh. It’s just like a big lump of taffy down there. Pull it all day and nothing happens.

Now, I know what you’re thinking. “Uncle Hardass is mad that a woman posed nude in a photo.” Nope, nope. Again, as I just said, twenty years ago I’d of retired to the bathroom with this photo in one hand and a bottle of Jergen’s in the other but, I might remind you, it’s like pulling taffy. I could yank on it for hours and the only thing would come out is one of those “Womp womp” sounds they play when you guess the wrong price on “The Price is Right.”

It frosts my ass because there’s literally no response that a man can make to a photo like this that a woman would find acceptable.

MALE RESPONSE: FEMALE RESPONSE:

Wow! What a lovely cooter shot! PIG!

I’m outraged at such nudity! How dare you demonize the female form?

You’re right. It’s a lovely photo. Pervert!

See? You can’t win. All these super hot chicks who are famous for being hot post naked photos of themselves all the time. And if you’re a man, there’s absolutely nothing you can say about it without getting in trouble with any woman who overhears you.

Really, the only thing you can do is just appreciate the fact that she posted it, then use it to inspire a monkey spanking session except, you know, I have to skip that because…taffy. Just a big lump of taffy.

Personally, I applaud Amber Rose for posting this photo. A) You can’t see it because I had to censor it due to the fact that my nephew, BQB, runs a classy blog (or so he says), but in the original photo, Amber is sporting a serious bush. Like, a big, giant, overgrowth. Seriously. It looks like she’s got Llhasa Apso trapped in a leg lock and try all he might, the little fella can’t budge.

That’s fine by me. Back in my day, it was the hairier the better. Hell, breaking out a weedwacker and a flashlight just to find your way to the thing was considered foreplay. You youngsters and your silky smooth lady parts have no idea what you’re missing.

Secondly, I thought it was pretty cool that Amber wears the same sunglasses I do. My doctor put those giant boxy sunglasses on me after I had my cataracts surgery and I assumed that only people my age are considered fashionable when they walk around looking like they’re playing a virtual reality game.

In conclusion, men, say nothing when you see these photos. There’s nothing you can say that will not leave a woman angry at you. Come to think of it, that doesn’t just apply to this photo but to literally everything else in life as well.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go pull my taffy. I think I felt a tingle. Then again, it could be gas.

Female writers are mad as hell and they’re not taking it anymore, 3.5 readers.

They’ve taken to Twitter to share some of the nasty, rude, unkind, insensitive things that they hear as women writers.

Hmm. You know, I’m nothing if not a friend to all female kind, so there was a part of me that just said, “Eh, don’t even write a post about it. Let the ladies complain.”

And honestly, as I scroll through the tweets, much of it is valid. Women get told they can’t write from a male perspective, that complex topics might be too hard for them, that they’re selfish for writing when they should be taking care of their kids and husbands and so forth.

I guess what irks me is the “only” part of the hashtag.

Look, ladies, I hear you. You got problems. That vagina and all the things that come with it is not a cakewalk.

However, do keep in mind that there’s something that no male writer has ever heard before:

“Here’s a million dollar book deal because you have a penis!”

It’s never happened.

This sort of reminds me how sometimes I’ll be watching TV and a woman will complain that men can be all fat and ugly while women are expected to be hot and attractive.

Umm…sure I’ll agree that it sucks when a woman is discriminated on based on their looks, but honestly, men that don’t look good get shit upon regularly too. It’s not a male/female thing, it’s a looks thing. The better you look, the farther you’ll go in life, whether you have a penis or a vagina.

Back to the hashtag. Do male writers get shit on? Yes. Ever since I was a little BQB boy, everyone has shit on my dream of becoming a writer. Men have shit on it. Women have shit on it.

I work and then I try to carve out a little time at night and on the weekends to write. Often, several weeks will go by where I don’t work on my novel projects at all because various people in my life need help. So I help them.

In the past, I’d try saying something like, “Hey, I’m trying to write a novel here” but they, men and women, would look at me like I just said, “Hey, I’m trying to time travel to ancient times and bring back a dinosaur to be my pet.”

In other words, the average person who is not interested in writing think that attempting to write a novel is frivolous and silly. If you tell people you’re writing a novel, some people will be polite and say, “Oh, isn’t that nice?” or they’ll be supportive and say, “That’s awesome!” but many, if not most, will think you’re being a wide-eyed dreamer with your head in the clouds, too busy day dreaming to pay attention to everything going on around you.

Yes, it sucks when female writers get shit on and told they are bad mothers and bad wives if they dare to carve out some time to write.

But, men get shit too. Men are expected to be manly. Men are expected to make a lot of money and be good providers. Men are expected to fix shit around the house when it breaks. When men take time to write, they’re often called pussies and wimps engaging in a frivolous daydream rather than being manly and making more money or fixing a car engine or something.

Men get shit. Women get shit. We all get shit. And we should be all be able to complain about the shit we get.

And before you give me shit, I feel like in the numerous project irons I’ve got in the fire, I’ve written some very strong, positive, female characters and I’ve had plots and subplots that point out some of the shit that women have to go through.

I just feel like we’re headed down a bad path in this country where the debate always turns on, “Well, I have this kind of genitalia so my life sucks and your life is great.”

No. No. No. Life sucks. It sucks in different ways for different people and sometimes the suck is even similar. But it sucks. It really sucks and you don’t get a pass on the suckyness of life just because you have one kind of body part or another.

OK, everyone let the point fly over their heads and proceed to bash your humble resident nerd in 3..2…1…

So, if you’re an older reader like me, you might need a rundown on what Snapchat is.

Snapchat was born out of the idea that millennials are total perverts who enjoy taking snaps of their private parts and sending them to their various love interests. However, as we all know, love today can turn into hate tomorrow and not all relationships are meant to last forever. Ergo, people thought, “Hey, wouldn’t be great if I could snap a photo of my naughty parts, send them to my love interest and then after a little bit the photo disappears so that today’s naughty photo doesn’t get turned into tomorrow’s hilarious Internet meme, thus ruining my chances of running for president?”

I mean, I don’t know Snapchat exactly asked that question but at any rate, they sort of cured that problem. You can snap a photo or a video, send it to a friend, then after awhile the photo or video disappears. In theory, it prevents that video you thought was a good idea when you were drunk at 3 am from going public, although it isn’t foolproof. There are ways around it. Your sneaky snap buddy could take a photo of your naughty photo, for example.

At any rate, Snapchat grew strong and got popular with the younguns. They created filters that can make you look like a puppy, a kitty, for awhile they dabbled in filters that made you look like you’re from a different race only to get smacked down hard because you can’t do shit like that, and yes, they created those damn flower crowns that literally every woman, even your grandma, uses for their profile picture now.

My gut told me not to buy. The experts also seem to agree that it’s not the best idea. The company has been valued at some astronomical figure, even higher than Facebook, yet I fear that might be all hype related and not reality related.

Had you bought Facebook stock early, you’d of been happy with your decision. As for Twitter, not so much as of late. Facebook has gone strong and everyone and their granny is on Facebook. Facebook basically became a new form of communication and information dispersement.

Twitter, on the other hand, became a repository of geeks like myself trying to tweet their way to fame and infamy, but ultimately it just descends into dummies writing dumb things limited to 140 characters.

As for Snapchat, I’m not sure I see an ability to generate the kind of wealth necessary to maintain a high valuation.

First, the primary users are young people…who have no money. Thus, if you make that stupid flower crown filter cost money, they won’t buy it. Maybe a few will dupe their dumb parents into buying it but for the most part, no. Only a select handful of dummies will spend a lot of money on photo filters.

3.5 READERS:BQB you asshole, do you think anyone is going to spend a lot of money on Toilet Gator either?

Probably not. Thanks, 3.5 readers. I needed that tough love.

Second, I don’t see a lot of social media value. You’ve heard of people becoming stars on Facebook and Twitter but has there been a Snapchat star yet? Has anyone Snapchatted their way to fame and glory? I’ve seen authors sign up for it but I feel like this only works for famous people. If a famous person is sending out videos, then you might sign up if you are a fan. Otherwise, I just don’t see it.

Plus, Facebook has come out with Facebook Live, which I assume was an effort to head Snapchat off at the pass. So, if you’re an author with a good Facebook following, you could livestream a video of yourself talking about your latest book. Meanwhile, if you’re not that well know, I guess you could snap videos of yourself out into the wind but I don’t think many people will partake. Maybe if you’re Stephen King or something.

Third, I don’t see a lot of advertising value. True, Snapchat has been inventive. They had a Gatorade filter for the Super Bowl where you could take a video of yourself and make it look like you just had Gatorade dumped on you, thereby making money off of a fun way to give Gatorade some unique advertising.

Other than that, I don’t know if the kids will sit still for actual ads. If you have to sit through a thirty second commercial before you can snap yourself, that’ll probably last until a rival company comes out with a similar app where you don’t have to watch a commercial.

3.5 READERS: So why did you buy the stock, asshole?

Because I’m an asshole.

I hope I’m not. So far it feels that way. I bought it, and then the instant I bought it, it lost me $5. Then twenty minutes later it lost me $25 dollars. So, that could just be a fluctuation. Hopefully, it gains tomorrow.

I don’t know. Twitter’s stock fell. Go Pro’s stock also fell, largely due to the fact that every dumbass who ever wanted to buy an athletic stunt camera bought one and as it turns out, assholes who want to jump out of planes and record their skydives are a select group. So once you sell them all stunt cameras, you’re out of people who want to buy stunt cameras.

Thus, I wonder about Snapchat’s future. Zuckerburg started raking in the coin by pushing his site on youngsters, but he became richer than most small nations by getting your mom and grandma to join, thus making bank on ad revenues.

So, I could be wrong, but the key will be to reach out to more old people and old people who want to make videos of themselves looking like puppies are a small, select group, or at least I hope they are.

Or maybe I hope they aren’t. Hey, 3.5 readers. Did you hear there’s an app that can make your face look like a dog? Trust me. I’ve pictured what you all look like and it would be a definite improvement. Zing! I kid, I kid. You’re all beautiful. But seriously. Get Snapchat, pour some virtual Gatorade on your head, get a virtual flower crown because you’re too lazy to just pick some flowers and make one, just use that Snapchat so my stock will go up high enough that I can put a Bookshelf Q. Hot Tub in Bookshelf Q. Battler Headquarters.

I’ve been reading stories saying that Twitter stock is down lately. Apparently the microblogging site isn’t finding as many ways to capitalize and make money as their rival, Facebook.

I tweet more than I Facebook, but I get why Facebook is making more money. Facebook has more “normals” i.e. people who just sign up and want to keep in touch with friends/ family while Twitter tends to be more losers like me, wannabe writers trying to coax people into checking out my site.

Anyway, I do hope that Twitter bounces back. I don’t want to see it go the way of Myspace.

Can you believe it? Just when I was thinking about giving BQB back his dumb blog and, blech, even considering the possibility of (gag) getting back together with that nerd, he totally douches out on Twitter.